Handbook of Parenting
Despite the fact that most people become parents and everyone who has
ever lived has had parents, parenting remains a most mystifying
subject. Who is ultimately responsible for parenting? Does parenting
come naturally, or must we learn how to parent? How do parents conceive
of parenting? Of childhood? What does it mean to parent a preterm baby,
twins, or a child with a disability? To be a younger or an older
parent, or one who is divorced, disabled, or drug abusing? What do
theories in psychology (psychoanalysis, personality theory, and
behavior genetics, for example) contribute to our understanding of
parenting? What are the goals parents have for themselves? For their
children? What are the functions of parents’ beliefs? Of parents’
behaviors? What accounts for parents’ believing or behaving in similar
ways? What accounts for all the attitudes and actions of parents that
differ? How do children influence their parents? How do personality,
knowledge, and world view affect parenting? How do social status,
culture, and history shape parenthood? How can parents effectively
relate to schools, daycare, their children’s pediatricians? These are
some of the questions addressed in this second edition of the Handbook
of Parenting . . . for this is a book on how to parent as much as it is
one on what being a parent is all about.